Cannot get drill file to import correctly

[newb]

I'm trying to view my gerbers generated from Eagle and cannot get the drill file to import correctly for some reason.

When I drag the files into ViewMate, I choose 0.1mils as the unit of measure for the .dri file and inches for the .gpi file. This is the result:



As you can see, the scale of the holes is messed up.

Here are the Eagle and gerber files.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get it to display correctly?

[marius]

If you use "File/Import/Zip" on the file you sent, you will get the correct import.
Similarly, before you zip, you can do "File/Import/Directory".
Importing drill files can be tricky as the format of the file is not always specified in the header.

[Tige Gibson]

I tried searching this forum for the word "drill" and I get literally zero results, and I get just two results for Excellon, both of which clearly contain the word drill.

Anyway this is the top post right now so I want to add my issue.

I just use ViewMate to check gerber files. I probably check a different board once or twice a week. I have to say that quite often Viewmate can't properly guess the format of a drill file and I find it quite frustrating. This week especially so as I have a particularly annoying problem with this drill file. It was generated by Expedition, but my clients use every major PCB design package.

What you see is the version with no zero suppression, but the original version had leading zero suppression, either way it would not import correctly. It clearly states the format here, but Viewmate insists that there are 7 significant figures even though there are clearly only six. I assume it is counting the minus sign as a decimal place, which must be taken to be a bug. Anyway this board has four drill files: plated and unplated versions of drill and mill, but Viewmate can't guess the right format for any of them (hint: they should all be the same format!).

It's really frustrating because I have to *New* to clear Viewmate, and reimport the zip file, over and over again to try to guess and configure each of the four files, and even though the format is clearly stated in each file, I can't configure it correctly.

; Version : LOCAL
; Job : *nsip* Expedition *snip*
; User : *snip*
; Date : Wed Sep 24 01:46:47 2014
; Format : 3.3 / Absolute / MM / None
; Contents: Thru / Drill / Non-Plated
M48
METRIC
FMAT,2
ICI,OFF
T02C0.5000
T03C0.8000
T01C1.6000
T14C3.1750
%
M71
G90
G93X000000Y000000
T02
X085996Y-001168
X084596
X007200Y000000
X005800
X082001Y098044
X080601
X014298
X012898
T03
X087296Y-001318
X083296
X008500Y-000150
X004500
X083301Y098194
X079301
X015598
X011598
T01
X087796Y-001968
X082796
X009000Y-000800
X004000
X083801Y098844
X078801
X016098
X011098
T14
X092000Y-006000
X003000
X091200Y102600
T00
M30

[marius]

The format line:
; Format : 3.3 / Absolute / MM / None
is not a standard Excellon item. It is a comment.

In Excellon it should be expressed as:
METRIC,TZ,000.000

You can also enter the parameters manually, before importing:

[Tige Gibson]

The format line:
; Format : 3.3 / Absolute / MM / None
is not a standard Excellon item. It is a comment.

In Excellon it should be expressed as:
METRIC,TZ,000.000

You can also enter the parameters manually, before importing:

This is beside the point. I was trying to use the comment to manually configure ViewMate, but ViewMate does not permit me to do so. I could only choose 3.4 or 4.3 because it must be counting the minus sign as a decimal place. All four drill files were the same format, generated at the same time by a professional PCB package, but ViewMate could not recognize all the drill files in the same zip file as being the same format, nor could I manually set them to be the same format.

METRIC is specified in the files outside the comment, but ViewMate did not consistently recognize them as metric, sometimes they were Imperial.

Since I don't want to unzip them and import the files one by one, I have to clear ViewMate and reimport a few times and trial and error each and every one of the four drill settings every time. The key advantage of ViewMate to me is the fact that it can open the ZIP file directly without needing to be unzipped first. The consistent failure to import drill files correctly is the only real annoyance I have with it.

[Abnahi3]

However, it is quite slow for export to .dxf file - a 2"x1.5" 4 layers board took 10 min to export to .dxf, comparing to a competitor of less than 1min.????

[marius]

This may depend on the options you pick for export.
Also, we know that exporting to network drives takes long - this is due to the implementation of the 3rd party library that we are using.